Narrative: final draft

                                                        Winona County Sheriff

When I saw the brush guard on a white Dodge Charger my heart dropped to my stomach and when I saw the red and blue lights start to flash as I passed by the sheriff, I thought my life was over. The night was October 9^th, the beginning of my senior year of high school and I was invited to a party at one of my friend’s house. The party was huge; all of my good friends were there along with large groups of kids from different schools. I had a good time and a few beers, soon after I finished my last drink everyone started running for the doors. All I knew was that the cops drove by and everyone was leaving. I knew I wasn’t drunk and decide I could drive my car. Shortly after leaving I was pulled over which was a very bad experience but ended up having a very positive overall outcome on my life.

As my senior year started out I had a pretty simple mindset: have as much fun as possible. Like most kids in their last year of high school, I felt pretty invincible. When you’re a senior you’re the top dog, for the most part, no one is older than you, nobody is bigger than you- you’re on the top. I spent as much time with my friends as possible, because no matter what we were doing I always had the time of my life. I wasn’t much of a partier but when my friends were partying I wanted to be there so I didn’t miss out on a good time. So when all my friends were at the big party the night I got pulled over, I had to be there.

I wasn’t planning on drinking the night of the party because I had to be at work at five in the morning the next day, but when I got there and I saw that everyone was drinking and having a blast I wanted to be right there with them.  I knew it wasn’t a good idea to drink but temptation got the best of me. Since I had to get up so early in the morning I decided I would only drink a little bit which ended up being a good decision.  Around midnight I was getting ready to leave when I dropped a chip in my cup, not wanting to drink a beer with a chip in it, I dumped the rest of my beer out. As soon as I threw away my cup everyone started running for the doors. I couldn’t figure out what was going on but then people started yelling that the cops had drove by and everything turned into mass chaos. There was a stampede of kids charging out of the doors. Everyone was getting in their cars so I thought I should too. When I pulled away from the party I looked in my rear-view mirror and saw that there was a train of cars following behind me.

While I was driving towards the edge of town I noticed a 55 mph speed limit sign so I started to speed up. But since the law says not to speed up until you pass the sign so technically I was speeding. There was a sheriff sitting across the street from the speed limit sign and as soon as I passed him, he turned on his lights. A million thoughts raced through my mind when I saw the lights- maybe he’ll be nice and let me go, Am I going to end up in Jail?, should I just speed off and try to out run him?.  I pulled over and the train of cars stopped dead in the road and watched as the sheriff followed behind me. The sheriff ended up testing my blood alcohol level and I blew a .077, which was .003 away from getting a DUI and going to jail.  So I ended up having to sit in the back of his car while we waited for my mom to come get me since I wasn’t yet an adult. While sitting in the tiny back end of the charger, I notice a little white sticker on the bullet proof glass between the front and rear of the car. The sticker said, “How’s your night going?... Consider sobriety.” This made me realize that if I would have made better decisions I wouldn’t have been sitting in the back of a cop car.

When my mom came and got me I knew everything was going to be different. On our ride home I knew my whole life would change, I was on hard core lock down at my house. My parents lost all of the little trust they had in me. The only time I was allowed to leave my house was when I was at school, work, or hunting. I spent a majority of my time hunting which gave me a lot of time to sit and reflect on all of the dumb things that I have done in life. Once I realized my stupidity, it changed me as a person. Having to go through the court system, probation, probation meetings, as well as having to pay a lot of fines, made me realize that there are more important things in life than always having fun and partying.

I started spending all my free time either working or pursuing my hobbies. I think that going through this whole ordeal made me grow a lot as a person in a lot of ways. I now make my decisions based on first looking at the consequences. Over all the bad experience made me a much better person and although I am not happy that I had to go through all the trouble I got myself into, I am happy about how I turned out.